Gheorghe

The very first time I saw him live was in maybe 1978 and the group was: Shepp on tenor and soprano, the great Siegfried Kessler on piano (born in Germany, lived in Paris), Bob Cunningham on bass, and Clifford Jarvis on drums. I´ll never forget that concert, though the performance hall was a very very ugly hall in a very ugly district. It was called "Kongresshaus", now there´s a food market (Billa) in the building. And about the same time, Shepp recorded "Bird Fire" with the same group for a french label . But they had a completely unkown trumpet player added on it and it would have been better without that trumpet, who anyway didn´t get much space.

Agreed: I love those two extended tracks above all. This is Bud Powell at his best, no one could say that Bud was in decline after 1953 or so, if he listen to this. This is top Bud Powell even within his own high demands. And I always said there are too many trio performances of Bud recorded. Maybe the usual trio settings started to bore him, since it is known, that Bud came to his old form, if he could play with fellow Americans, especially with horn players. This one was originally "Blakey in Paris". There are other interesting recordings of Bud with horn players like "Our Man in Paris" with Dex, "Dizzy with the Double Six of Paris", "Americans in Europe" (Impulse), "Hawk in Germany", and I also have some unissued stuff of Bud with Don Byas and Brew Moore from 1962 in Denmark.

Great, I saw him many times, mostly as a quartet, but the last time (already in the 2000´s ) with a trio with bass and drums. Shepp naturally played mostly tenor and still great enough, albeit due to age a little more slowed down. And he also played piano, a Monk ballad from the BN 40´s trio recordings, and he really did it very Monkish, if you closed your eyes you might have thought it´s Monk himself.

Yes, that Jazz Icons Series with Oslo, Stockholm and Leige. Oh I love that band so much. Only one thing, maybe it´s a question of tastes, but since I first heard the "Great Concert of Charles Mingus" from Paris (the 3 LP set from the America Label) which then was the only recorded stuff of Mingus from that tour, with the exception of "Townhall" in NY just before they went on tour, I must admit I have some difficulties with listening to Johnny Coles´ trumpet. My impression is, that the band, with such strong members as Dolphy, Byard and of course also Cifford Jordan, there is not much place for Coles´ trumpet. Maybe in the lead of "Orange" , which was meant to be for trumpet, but I can´t really get with Coles´ solos in context with Mingus. Coles somehow has a quite thin, plaintative sound and approach, somehow his sound reminds me of Ornette Coleman playing trumpet. I know there are lot fans of Johnny Coles, and I also like his BN "Little Johnny C." but not necessarly for his trumpet.

Sure. Anyway, he can be easily identified by his sound and aproach, and John Handy also.

Yes, agreed. Really, when writing my review I also had "Speak Brother Speak" in my mind, and I love it an Cliff´s playing is similar strong like on that Mingus at Workshop. Actually I bought both LP´s about the same time in 1978. They were very easy to purchase here in Europe, as reissiues on the french America Label. And I bought Speak Brother Speak after I heard Roach at the beginning of september 1978. Anyway, it was the only album of Roach under his own name, that was in the record store then, because it was from the in general availaible "America" label, from which they had all albums, much stuff from the original Debut label.

This album is also from 1964, but after the tour with Dolphy and Byard. Only Cliff Jordan and Dannie Richmond left, but with an only 16 year old female pianist Jane Getz. You might miss Dolphy, but I want to say that Clifford Jordan is extremely strong on this, and the band of only 4 members is very very strong, Danny Richmond is such a fantastic drummer and I like it to hear him much. Mingus on bass maybe was one of the very best bass players of his time, it´s incredible how strong is his sound and his solos, really telling something, not just doing exercices as some bass players do when soloing. On "Fables of Faubus", here titled "New Fables" those different moods, at one point some really spanish sounding stuff, very similar to "Ysabel´s Table Dance" from "Tijuana Moods", only much more impressive and powerful. During the end John Handy sit´s in and does a very fine slow blues in F, and somehow his sound reminds me of Jackie McLean. On "Meditations" we can hear Jane Getz soloing. Maybe she can not be compared with Jakie Byard, but it´s incredible, how easy she adapts to all the tempo and key changes. And very good technical. She must have been a child wonder, if she could play like that, only being 16 years old. But I also wonder how she was allowed to play at night clubs being underage, with such a difficult personality like Mingus. But Mingus really gives her much support and they sound great together. So, maybe not Mingus´ most important album, but nevertheless a very interesting one.

Oh yes, agreed ! I saw Jay McShann in the mid 80´s I think, at Jazzland in Vienna. Very very fine to hear some Kansas City styled music. And at one point on the last set, the sicilian female blues singer Etta Scollo sat in for some blues vocals, it was very very nice and Mr. McShann also liked it. I saw Buddy Tate around the same time in other surroundings. It was a Woody Herman All-Stars. That was the first time I saw Woody Herman without the Herd, just a smaller group. Buddy Tate, Al Cohn and Scott Hamilton were on tenor, I think it was Warren Vaché on trumpet, John Bunch on piano, a young unknown bass player (George Duvivier was scheduled but was sick, I think he died a few days later), and if I remember right, it was Jake Hanna on drums.

Well jokes, yes, and parody: There was a great parody on german comedian Otto Waalkes "Otto, der Film" with "Schwarzbraun ist die Haselnuss" mixed with some Michael Jackson stuff. I think, Heine was not amused at all, and tried to sue Otto. Well, yeah, that´s a bit uncool. And yeah, maybe "cool" was the wrong expression I chose. It´s funny for people like me, I don´t take it so serious as shlager-Fans. Sometimes my wife and me do some little fun and play it loud in the garden. Wonder what the neighbours think about us at just a moment

Yes, Changes is fantastic. Only one thing I might mention from my own point of view: The "Orange ist the Colour of Her Dress" is not as great as the versions with Dolphy and Byard.

I´m also a "Leg´s Man", but I like with hoserie more than nude legs.....

The albums with McPherson, Bobby Jones ? Are you talking about the two 1970 albums for the french label "America". They are titled "Blue Bird" and "Pyticanthropus Erectus". But on those I think it´s not Lonnie Hillyer on trumpet, it´s an "Eddie Preston" who is somewhat below the other really giants McPherson, Bobby Jones and the great great Jakie Byard. I like those albums, even if they don´t have the fire of the 60´s or of the great bands from 1975 on. "I left my Heart in San Francisco" is really nice, Pyticantropus Erectus is somewhat more subdued that it was supposed to be played. "Love is a Dangerous Necessity" is really interesting, the hornes without other instruments, it sounds like a forerunner of "Music for Todo Modo" if you listen close to it. I haven´t listened to "Move" for a long time. There might be two compositions done by the other members, "Flowers to a Lady" by Adams, and "Newcomer" by Pullen. I liked "Newcomer" and heard it live in 1980 with George Adams-Don Pullen-Cameron Brown-Dannie Richmond. The other stuff........aaah, some "Opus" which is nothing else then something based on "Pyticantropus Erectus", "Canon" had bored me, and the vocals, not really my stuff. And I think it was the first album on which Richmond played again with Mingus after some years of Rock´n Roll or something like that.

You might wonder, why I aswer to this, since I´m strictly jazz and an absolute "nobody" if it´s about other genres of music. But "Heino" is cool. Once when I was a teenager, my then girlfriend an me took a cheap ticket for a bus to Southern Tirol (former Austria, now Italia) and we were the only youngsters, all the others were older people past 60,65 years and the bus driver had some cassetes to play music during the trip, and there were tons of melodies by Heino. It was a strange atmosphere, a young teenie couple and old old folks, and hours and hours of "Heino". "Blau Blau Blau blüht der Enzian" "Schwarzbraun ist die Haselnuss" "Oh Du schöner Westerwald". It was so "square" that it was "cool" again. He knows his stuff and has a great voice doin´ it. Hope he will live long and it´s really moving how much he and his nice wife are so much in love. The only strange thing was, when some years ago he tried to go "modern" and dressed in some leather outfit, something like "Heino goes Rock", and this really did not fit to him. It seems that he has returned to his act again.

Thanks Jim for your impressions, which are quite similar as I saw it. Especially about that period between " Let My Children Hear Music" and "Changes One/Two). That 1972 stuff , a double album also for Columbia is not really exiting. Same about "Mingus Moves". Well, the 1974 jam is quite fun and it was quite exiting for me when it came out. But the really great band, and when Mingus became "his old self" again, as Sue said, was the "Changes 1/2 band" and after that the "Walrath-Ford-Neloms-Mingus-Richmond band, that many of us saw live in 1977. Many other musicians of his generation kept the same songs for the rest of their career, but in 1977 he did brand new things like "Three or Four Shades of Blues" and "Cumbia", which sounded much more interesting live with the quintet, that was really, really together, and Walrath has become a fantastic trumpet player.

Yes, "Five o´Clock Whistle" is really nice, like everything on that album. The last side, as I remember is a quintet, also very fine, only I think I remember I didn´t like the sound of the trumpet. Those Prestige doublealbums were very easy to find in the 70´s. I bought the album especially since I was eager to get albums from each member of the Miles Davis quintet, which I loved and love so much. So it was Coltrane´s "Soultrane" (also with Garland), Philly J.J. "Blues for Drakula" and the BN paperbag cover double album "Paul Chambers and John Coltrane), also with Philly J.J. on drums.

This time disc IV: So, about the Amsterdam Concert I can say, that it has the same tunes like the "Great Concert in Paris", but "Paris" has a much better recording sound. One very nice thing is, that here on "Sophisticated Lady" it´s also 16 bars of Jakie Byard solo. There is much great stuff happenig, but I like the "Paris Concert" more. And I hope it´s not a sacrileg, but I´m not really happy with Johnny Coles on trumpet. Somehow, as we see from the Paris concert, the proceedings go even better without him. Somehow, he doesn´t really fit into that group of giants like Dolphy, Byard, and Clifford Jordan, who becomes greater and stronger every time. Johnny Coles has a more plaintative sound, it reminds me a bit of Ornette Coleman if he played trumpet. And on the Amsterdam section you sometimes have difficulties to hear the bass, which is a pity, since Mingus, as I think, was the most exiting bass player ever, with all due respect to Paul Chambers and Ron Carter and all of them. And Danny Richmond get´s more spotlight on the Paris Concert.

Wait a minute ! Since I couldn´t see any comentary or analysis, is that "You Are Under Arrest?". Since it seems this as another cover photo than mine. On the copy I have Miles with a gun. Well I don´t really like guns in combination with music and with live in general with the exception when I was in the army as a teenager and liked it, but how about a little talk about the music ? I remember those 80´s as a time when we all waited eagerly for the next Miles album. At least as long as there still was a kind of "jazz group" feeling in it, not only computeres with Miles overdubbed. As much as we loved "Man with the Horn", "We want Miles" and the third one, that one with the long blues on it "Star Eyes", but let´s say "Decoy" didn´t move me at all with the exception of "Code MD" which he also played live, much better than in the studio. "Arrest" was something else. I liked the bass intro because it reminded me of "Jack Johnson" and the Jack Johnson version on "Agartha", and even the pop tune "Time After Time" sounded good for me. Only John Scofield was not exactly what I wanted to hear on guitar, he is a bit behind the beat, I liked Mike Stern more. I heard Miles with the same group when it was brand new. It was imediatly after the release of "Arrest" and they played those tunes. Then it was fresh and new. But after that it started to become boring and a routine show. For the next years, he always repeated "Arrest", "Time after Time" and the silly "Human Nature". And the then so good blues on the 1983 "Star People" album became some dumb blues cliché (New Blues) . Only on a 1989 album there came a bit more stuff added and some more interesting tunes and real players instead of machines. I

Oh yeah, I also purchased this shortly after it came out. I think I bought it during an open air jazz festival were they sold records during intermission. They had more obscure labels, like this one. That great group ! And maybe this was the beginning of Shepps return from totally free to more straight ahead forms like "Blues for Donald Duck"

Thelonious section ? I remember, one of my school buddies had an ECM Album of solo I think and there was Monk´s "Trinkle Tinkle" on it. Really something. About Chick Corea during that time (second half of the 70´s ): There was a Chick Corea boom especially RTF. Though RTF may not be my first choice of spinning, I admit it sounded good, especially stuff like "Romantic Warrior". But many RTF or Chick Corea fans were somehow strange people. Some kind of post hippy philosophy with questions like "who am I, were am I coming from and where am I going". Maybe not exactly like this, but something I couldn´t get with. Well, I had long hair and stuff and maybe I looked for some like some kind of those post hippies, but it was only to look older and to get in the clubs still being underage. When I went to Jazzland one night to hear Art Farmer, some of those strange guys during intermission started to ask me stuff like "what kind of human being are you". I said I am a jazz fan and I am here to hear this stuff and have a beer and a cigarette during intermission. This is a jazz club and not a spiritual meeting".

Somehow I don´t really like this. Maybe it sounds dumb what I say, but my impression is that somebody wanted to do a "pseudo-modern" film. It´s too abstract. I think, strange films like that were something of film avantgarde during the 60´s. You watch it and ask yourself, was this really all ? If I want to see a good film about Bud, it´s the one they made after Francis Paudras death, with much more music and people talking about Bud, people who knew him, like Francis and Celia and the rare and interesting things that Margareta says, a swedish woman who was close to Bud in his last years. I think they tried to make another filme about Bud in 1963, it was a film maker from Jamaika as much as I think I remember that I read. Some well known fotos of Bud from 1963 seem to be made during that film projekt. Since it´s again Bud standing in front of a food store, , Bud sittin at a little table, it´s possible that this also was such a strange abstract film with very few things happening. One strange thing about the photos is that Bud, who always was quite heavy and short, looks very skinny on those fotos. Maybe this was because he conctracted TB ? Bud was at a french sanatorium but after his stay at the santatorium he was heavy again, almost bloated. Maybe some medication that causes puttin on weight ? There are still medications that makes you look heavier.

I love it. Really hot stuff. Only Tete Montoliu´s piano could have been recorded better.

I had the honour to play on several occasions with Allen Praskin. I learned so much from him when I was still almost a kid.

Oscar PETTIFORD Memorial Concert

Actually Disc III, the Amsterdam Concert. I must admit one thing: One of the first records I had in my teenage days was the Paris Concert. I enjoy the Amsterdam stuff but I must admit that the Paris material is much stronger. And maybe it´s my fault, but I don´t really enjoy Johnny Coles´ trumpet that much. Somehow, he has a very thin tone and does not really fit into the unit of that most powerful giants like Dolphy, Jordan, Jakie Byard. But maybe he was very sick, since he collapsed on stage in Paris, so the Paris material was only the quintet without Coles. And the Amsterdam concert is not very well recorded, it´s much better sound quality on the Paris concert. Somehow, the "drive" is much more powerful in Paris.....

Yes, that is how it was. I read this in Wayne Shorter´s book. Other than Wayne, Alan seems to have been a very difficult personality. I heard his playing and a very interesting compositon, I think it´s titled "Mephisto" on "The All Seeing Eye" , a really fantastic Wayne Shorter album.